Informal Bass advisor now working for Lineage 20%
By Noah Goldberg0% Alex Wigglesworth0%
7/12/2026, 3:57:04 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 7 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Hindsight Bias, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 16.1% saturation with 142 hits. Analysis detected 380 faulty-reasoning hits from 883 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 34.6% and a BS Rank of 20% (12,132 of 15,051 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 80.60% of the article peer group.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
By Noah Goldberg and Alex Wigglesworth
July 11, 2026 8:57 PM PT
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Yusef Robb, an unpaid advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in the run-up to the June 2 primary, is now doing work as a crisis communications consultant for Lineage Logistics, the company under scrutiny for a fire at its cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights.
A Bass spokesman said Robb hasn’t communicated with the mayor or her staff on behalf of Lineage.
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A top informal advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is working as a crisis communications consultant for Lineage Logistics, the company whose cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights erupted in flames last month, inundating the surrounding neighborhood with toxic smoke and the odor of rotting food.
Yusef Robb, who runs the firm tk/Communications , was a familiar presence at City Hall for the first half of the year, accompanying Bass at news conferences and delivering comments on her behalf on issues such as the city’s response to the Palisades fire.
Two days after the blaze at Lineage Logistics’ cold storage facility ignited on June 17, Robb began working for the company, aiding with communications consulting, he confirmed to The Times.
Robb said he served as an unpaid advisor and spokesperson for Bass through the June 2 mayoral primary.
Robb declined to comment beyond confirming his scope and dates of work for the mayor and Lineage.
Bass spokesman Kolby Lee said that Robb provided “extra help” to the administration during the first half of the year, but “has never been a city employee for the Bass administration.”
Lee said that Robb continues to advise Bass on an informal basis, but he hasn’t communicated with Bass or her office “on behalf of Lineage.”
Lineage Logistics’ 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility in Boyle Heights burned for more than a week after a rooftop fire ignited June 17, while the mayor was in Chicago for the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
The fire sent plumes of black smoke over Boyle Heights and other parts of Los Angeles, leaving the air heavy with soot.
The Boyle Heights community has turned much of its ire toward Lineage Logistics after the fire, with some calling for the company to leave the neighborhood where it has had a warehouse for more than 20 years.
Residents have also criticized elected officials including Bass for their response to the blaze, and the mayor was booed during a community meeting Thursday night.
At that meeting, Bass pledged to “hold Lineage and any other corporation accountable, holding their feet to the fire to make sure that any potential harm is prevented in warehouses that are surrounding the area and most especially from what has happened here with Lineage.”
Even as the mayor has demanded accountability from Lineage, Robb made a call to a reporter for The Times on behalf of the company.
“The public is demanding accountability, but to what extent can the mayor hold this company accountable when it’s being represented by her advisor and friend?”
asked Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College.
Robb’s time helping the mayor’s office came at a time of heavy turnover in the mayor’s communications team.
Her deputy mayor of communications, Zach Seidl, left in October 2025 and his replacement, Amanda Crumley, left after about two months on the job.
Robb is a longtime fixture at City Hall.
He was a press aide in Mayor Jim Hahn’s administration, then worked for Eric Garcetti both when Garcetti was a council member and then mayor.
He left Garcetti’s office in 2015.
Robb also worked on Bass’ 2022 mayoral campaign .
When Bass took office, Robb was paid to help her nascent administration, according to city contracts.
The city paid $75,000 total in 2022 and 2023 to Robb’s firm to provide “various communications services related to the start-up of the administration,” according to a contract.
But Robb’s work for Bass this year was unpaid, the mayor’s office said.
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
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Noah Goldberg covers Los Angeles City Hall for the Los Angeles Times.
He previously worked on its breaking news team and has also written an array of offbeat enterprise stories.
Before joining The Times in 2022, Goldberg worked in New York City as the Brooklyn courts reporter for the New York Daily News and as the criminal justice reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle.
He graduated from Vassar College.
Alex Wigglesworth is a reporter who covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert communities for the Los Angeles Times.
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